Admitting the system is flawed, the attorney general plans to go after people who post bail and fail to supervise the accused — such as the man charged in the Eaton Centre shooting.

The Ministry of the Attorney General is trying to get the sureties who put up bail money for Christopher Husbands, the man accused of a mass shooting in the Eaton Centre while out on bail for a different charge, to pay the $2,000 they pledged.

By:Betsy PowellCourts Bureau, Published on Fri Nov 30 2012

The Crown wants to penalize the two people who guaranteed bail for the accused Eaton Centre shooter, to send a message to all those who fail to supervise accused criminals, a judge was told Friday.

Christopher Husbands isn’t just an accused murderer; he is a “symbol” of a bail enforcement system “that frankly has faults,” prosecutor Meghan Scott told court.

For that reason, the attorney general plans to more aggressively go after financial penalties for sureties — the people who pledge money and promise to monitor someone out on bail — when they fall down on the job, Scott said.

Husbands was under house arrest for a sexual-assault charge on June 2, the day a gunman sprayed the Eaton Centre food court with bullets. He’s now charged with two counts of first-degree murder and five counts of attempted murder in that incident.

Back on Dec. 2, 2010, he was granted bail after two sureties pledged $2,000 each if he breached the conditions of his bail — eight in all. Husbands also promised to pay $4,000 if he broke the rules, for a total of $8,000 that the Crown now wants to collect. (He was convicted of the sex assault last month and sentenced to a year in prison.)

Superior Court Justice Brian Trafford imposed a ban on the names of the two sureties because they may be called as witnesses at Husbands’ trial, which won’t happen before 2014. He also imposed a 30-day publication ban on these proceedings to ensure Husbands gets a fair trial.

The Crown alleges that Husbands broke four of his bail conditions by being at the Eaton Centre on June 2 — which Scott says can be proved with photos and surveillance footage showing him there with a cellphone and a gun.

But Trafford challenged Scott, saying the Crown’s timing was “premature,” since Husbands has not yet been convicted of any charges related to the Eaton Centre shooting, nor is he even charged with breaching bail. “Why are you proceeding on this at all?” he said.

Defence lawyer Sharon Jeethan suggested to Trafford the Crown office is attempting to use Husbands for its own “political agenda.” She said characterizing him as “a symbol” of a flawed bail system is “profoundly prejudicial, and quite frankly absurd.”

“He is not the poster child of a bad bail system,” she said. “It is certainly not his fault that there are problems with the system.”

In any event, the defence will be bringing a motion to nullify the original paperwork that triggered the forfeiture proceedings because it was improperly done. Trafford told court he believes the defence will succeed.

In that case, the Crown would have to start over in its attempt to “estreat” the $8,000.

Outside court, Jeethan said the attorney general has singled out Husbands “because of the publicity attached,” and to steer attention away from the flawed system.

If the ministry believes changes are needed, “police should put better programs in place in terms of checking bail compliance,” Jeethan said. And perhaps there needs to be a “meeting of the minds, just the way we fix other things.”